LG’s Budget Smartphones Bring LTE, Android Lollipop At The Lowest Price Yet

LG has sprung a minor surprise by unveiling a range of mid- and low-cost mobile devices just a week before the Mobile World Congress (MWC) show in Barcelona.

The company may not be revealing a new flagship device (in all likelihood the G4) at the show, preferring to wait for the news agenda to quieten down following a series of big-name releases from the likes of Samsung, HTC and Huawei, but it still wants to be a part of the MWC madness.

Offering what LG says are ‘premium features’ at affordable prices, the new Magna, Spirit, Leon and Joy devices all include 4G LTE support and run the latest version of Android 5.0 Lollipop.

Power up

The LG Magna is the most powerful of the four new devices, comes with a 5in 294ppi display and is powered by a 2,540mAh battery, 1GB of RAM and either a 1.2GHz or 1.3GHz quad-core processor. Designed for the selfie fan, the device packs in an 8MP main camera and 5MP front lens to ensure you capture the perfect shot.

Next up is the 4.7in LG Spirit, sporting the same hardware specifications and 8MP camera, which includes nifty tricks such as Gesture Shot, which lets you start the camera timer with a wave from as far as 1.5m away, so as to accommodate the growing (yet inexplicable) love for ‘selfie sticks’.

Both the Magna and Spirit feature a curved design similar to LG’s G Flex 2 smartphone, which the company says will mean the device will sit in your hand easier and make it harder to drop.

Pocket-friendly

The budget options are the 4.5in LG Leon and the LG Joy, featuring a 4in display suitable for those shopping on a budget. Both devices pack the same options of a 1.2 or 1.3GHz processor, and can support Android Lollipop and LTE Cat.4 networks.

“LG’s new mid-range collection continues our legacy of offering amazing smartphones at reasonable prices,” said Juno Cho, LG president and CEO. “For millions of consumers around the world, the deciding factor on which smartphone to buy isn’t how fast or how big it is but how balanced it is. With our new mid-range smartphones, more and more customers will be looking to LG for their next handsets.”

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